Realms In The Firmament

Chapter 41 - Nobody Wants It? I Will Take It!

Guan Wan-Shan said, “I believe all of you know something about this item, so I don’t want to say anything redundant. This item has been in our storage for hundreds of years already. We have failed countless times to discover its value and uses… If any of you want it, just bid for it. There will be no starting price for this item. Lets begin with it now.”

He had just finished his words, and the crowd turned silent at once.

Everyone recognized the infamous Cosmic Hades.

It was truly a mysterious stone. No one would deny that it was quite a valuable thing. It would be an understatement to say that this was an ordinary treasure. Its mysteriousness alone would make it worth a lot.

However, three thousand years had passed and not one person had figured out its functions!

It couldn’t be cut, crushed or melted.

People basically couldn’t figure out anything about this extremely cold stone.

Well, some people had thought about using it as a cooling tool to maybe cool down the air and preserve some food and drinks in the summer. It might be a waste of its potential to use it for such a tiny job, but at least it would become somewhat useful!

However, the problem was… the cold qi that it produced was not something ordinary. It was extremely frigid and aggressive. Even an expert at the Grade of Tianyuan would fail to bear the daily effects of this kind of qi. It might not only give people a setback in cultivation, but it might even permanently damage their bodies!

Everyone knew that if it was successfully developed, it could become an extremely powerful weapon!

However, they all had the same question in their minds…

Who would be able to develop it? And more importantly, How?

Anyway, in the previous three thousand years, everyone that had tried to do so, had eventually failed. No progress had been seen and the question about its uses remained unanswered.

Some of these people had actually died because of its extreme coldness. As time passed, people had become wary of its coldness and no one dared to solve the mystery of the Cosmic Hades. People didn’t even want to get close to it.

That was why, when it showed up, all of the people turned silent.

The whole room turned silent, causing the atmosphere to become rather awkward.

To Guan Wan-Shan’s credit, he didn’t show any nervousness. He just stood still on the stage.

He had been nervous when the auctioning of the Jade Ruyi had brought silence, but it was a different situation this time. People would see it as a regular result if the Cosmic Hades was abortive. He wouldn’t feel disgraced at all.

In fact, the Ling-Bao Hall was just showing this item to go through the motions.

Of course, it would be great if someone bid and took it, but if no one did, it could still calm the audience down.

The Ling-Bao Hall felt a headache every time they thought about this item.

It was truly something of little value or interest.

There were some people who knew more about the stone.

There was a story about Ling-Bao Hall and the Cosmic Hades, and it was the reason why they had to take it out for this auction.

When Wan Zheng-Hao, the owner of the Ling-Bao Hall, had just begun to run his auction business, he had nothing really valuable to draw people’s attentions for the salesroom. He was on a downturn.

One day, this piece of Cosmic Hades suddenly showed up and it had really strange attributes. People didn’t want to take a risk by keeping it, but Wan Zheng-Hao realized that it might be an opportunity for him. He was a determined guy, so he spent eighty percent of his property to obtain this stone.

After that, his salesroom suddenly became famous. The name ‘Cosmic Hades’ had been spread far and wide since then.

It was really something mysterious and fanciful, so as time went by, everybody got to know the Ling-Bao Hall.

However, unexpectedly… every time after the stone had been sold, it was sent back to the salesroom. The same situation had happened dozens of times.

In the last two hundred years, it had even been kept inside the storage of the salesroom and no one had ever asked about it.

The salesroom had spent a fortune to buy a stone that nobody wanted. It was a big joke in many people’s mind…

However, for the Ling-Bao Hall, it was a special treasure, but also the beginning of their great success and the leading item in their collection.

So, for every grand auction, they would show the Cosmic Hades.

They called it ‘seeking the man with destiny’.

In fact, people all knew that they just wanted to get lucky and sell it.

It might be of great use when the founder of the Ling-Bao Hall had just started the salesroom, so it was reasonable for him to spend such a great deal for it…

Now he had been right and had brought the salesroom the success!

However, for the salesroom nowadays, it was just useless garbage.

Besides, people saw it as a big joke. It had already become a burden.

How ironic it was, that the thing, which had helped them the most at the beginning, had now become a joke…

Anyway, they couldn’t just hide it or throw it away, because the whole world knew that it belonged to them. The only proper way to deal with it was to sell it to someone in front of the public.

They bought it; they sold it. It sounded right.

But it stuck with them. There never was any man ‘with destiny’!

Guan Wan-Shan had felt upset when he got the order to take the stone out again.

When he was just preparing to take it back and announce an abortive auction, he heard the voice of Master Feng sounding out from the No.17 balcony, “250 thousand!”

Guan Wan-Shan didn’t feel annoyed about this voice anymore; he felt grateful and pleased instead.

He hadn’t felt so grateful towards Feng Zhi-Ling, even when the latter had brought him the supreme dan beads.

He was thinking, “Oh my good lord. You really are a good man. You just solved our biggest difficulty. I hope you will not send it back, brother Feng. I appreciate it sincerely!”

Everyone was looking at the No.17 balcony with expressions like ‘he’s a dickhead’.

“Does he know anything about the Cosmic Hades?”

“He actually spent 250 thousand on it?”

“I think Guan Zheng-Hao had spent less than this amount on it in the old days.”

“No one has spent this much for that stone ever!”

“He really is a stupidly rich moron…”

“I thought he was smart to play tricks to buy things at the lowest prices possible. Oh, How wrong I was! I must’ve seen it wrong!”

The girl in white frowned and got lost in her thoughts for a while. She nearly decided to buy the stone for a moment, but changed her mind at the last moment.

She didn’t want to cause any accessorial trouble with this mysterious master Feng, especially since they had already been in a quarrel. Besides, she thought it’d be profitless to keep a gelid stone around her master, as he was extremely weak at the moment.

It was just a strange stone; she didn’t want to fight for it.

…

Ye Xiao was feeling quite different from the others; he was full of a form of excitement that he had never felt before.

He had wanted to buy some valuable medicines or treasures in the auction to feed his spiritual space. In fact, he wouldn’t have been interested in things like the Cosmic Hades.

However, when the stone showed up and the whole room got cold, the space inside his body suddenly shook!

And then he had a strong feeling of eagerness from deep within his spiritual space!

The feeling of eagerness was even stronger than when he had been absorbing the Pure Heavenly Crystal!

Ye Xiao was totally surprised about it!

He could even sense the howling of eagerness from his spiritual space!

What was that?

Could it be that this Cosmic Hades was something even better than the Pure Heavenly Crystal? Anyway, It was surely something that could benefit his spiritual space.

So Ye Xiao didn’t hesitate and made a bid with the high price of 250 thousand!

He knew that this stone, which was useless in other people’s eyes, might be a key to a massive improvement for him!

It might be a great moment in his life!

This price was surely reasonable for him; it could even be higher and it wouldn’t scare him!

No one made an offer after Ye Xiao and Guan Wan-Shan had called it three times already.

Ye Xiao got the Cosmic Hades without any complications.

In the No.7 balcony, the girl in cyan was staring at the Cosmic Hades and her eyes were lit up. She turned her head and said, “Go check on the No.17 balcony. Find out who that guy is, where he’s from and what background he has.”

A middle-aged woman who was standing behind the girl said yes to her and stood up preparing to leave. The girl in cyan suddenly said, “Wait!”

At the same time, something was happening in the No.2 balcony.

It was the Ling-Yun Sect that stayed in the No.2 balcony.

Xiao Mo-Yan, a sage-like man with three long wisps of moustache, who was the hierarch of the Ling-Yun Sect, spoke peacefully, “This man… is not a fool at all. But why is he so confident? Does he know how to use that stone?”

The other guy who was also sitting inside the No.2 balcony, the prime dan-maker of the Ling-Yun Sect spoke, “This guy is extraordinary. He has been controlling the whole situation in the auction today. He’s playing tough when everybody is saving money for the supreme dan beads. He has already seized most of the valuable items. I would say that he has already become the winner of this auction…”

Xiao Mo-Yan’s eyes were lit up. He spoke peacefully, “The only thing I care about, is that… this guy… seems to have no interests in the supreme dan beads…”

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